From Crisis to Action

COP27 Climate Change Conference: Urgent Action Needed for Africa and the World

COP27 Climate Change Conference: Urgent action needed for Africa and the world.

Wealthy nations must step up support for Africa and vulnerable countries in addressing past, present and future impacts of climate change. The 2022 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) paints a dark picture of the future of life on earth, characterised by ecosystem collapse, species extinction, and climate hazards such as heatwaves and floods.1 These are all linked to physical and mental health problems, with direct and indirect consequences of increased morbidity and mortality. To avoid these catastrophic health effects across all regions of the globe, there is broad agreement—as 231 health journals argued together in 2021—that the rise in global temperature must be limited to less than 1.5°C compared with pre-industrial levels. While the Paris Agreement of 2015 outlines a global action framework that incorporates providing climate finance to developing countries, this support has yet to materialise.2 COP27 is the fifth Conference of the Parties (COP) to be organised in Africa since its inception in 1995. Ahead of this meeting, we—as health journal editors from across the continent—call for urgent action to ensure it is the COP that finally delivers climate justice for Africa and vulnerable countries. This is essential not just for the health of those countries, but for the health of the whole world. The climate crisis has had an impact on the environmental and social determinants of health across Africa, leading to devastating health effects.3 Impacts on health can result directly from environmental shocks and indirectly through socially mediated effects.4 Climate change-related risks in Africa include flooding, drought, heatwaves, reduced food production, and reduced labour productivity.5 Droughts in sub-Saharan Africa have tripled between 1970–79 and 2010–2019.6 In 2018, devastating cyclones impacted 2.2 million people in Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe.6 In west and central Africa, severe flooding resulted in mortality and forced migration from loss of shelter, cultivated land, and livestock.7 Changes in vector ecology brought about by floods and damage to environmental hygiene have led to increases in diseases across sub-Saharan Africa, with rises in malaria, dengue fever, Lassa fever, Rift Valley fever, Lyme disease, Ebola virus, West Nile virus and other infections.8, 9 Rising sea levels reduce water quality, leading to water-borne diseases, including diarrhoeal diseases, a leading cause of mortality in Africa.8 Extreme weather damages water and food supply, increasing food insecurity and malnutrition, which causes 1.7 million deaths annually in Africa.10 According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, malnutrition has increased by almost 50% since 2012, owing to the central role agriculture plays in African economies.11 Environmental shocks and their knock-on effects also cause severe harm to mental health.12 In all, it is estimated that the climate crisis has destroyed a fifth of the gross domestic product (GDP) of the countries most vulnerable to climate shocks.13 The damage to Africa should be of supreme concern to all nations. This is partly for moral reasons. It is highly unjust that the most impacted nations have contributed the least to global cumulative emissions, which are driving the climate crisis and its increasingly severe effects. North America and Europe have contributed 62% of carbon dioxide emissions since the Industrial Revolution, whereas Africa has contributed only 3%.14 Yet it is not just for moral reasons that all nations should be concerned for Africa. The acute and chronic impacts of the climate crisis create problems like poverty, infectious disease, forced migration, and conflict that spread through globalised systems.6, 15 These knock-on impacts affect all nations. COVID-19 served as a wake-up call to these global dynamics and it is no coincidence that health professionals have been active in identifying and responding to the consequences of growing systemic risks to health. But the lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic should not be limited to pandemic risk.16, 17 Instead, it is imperative that the suffering of frontline nations, including those in Africa, be the core consideration at COP27: in an interconnected world, leaving countries to the mercy of environmental shocks creates instability that has severe consequences for all nations. The primary focus of climate summits remains to rapidly reduce emissions so that global temperature rises are kept to below 1.5°C. This will limit the harm. But, for Africa and other vulnerable regions, this harm is already severe. Achieving the promised target of providing $100bn of climate finance a year is now globally critical if we are to forestall the systemic risks of leaving societies in crisis. This can be done by ensuring these resources focus on increasing resilience to the existing and inevitable future impacts of the climate crisis, as well as on supporting vulnerable nations to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions: a parity of esteem between adaptation and mitigation. These resources should come through grants not loans, and be urgently scaled up before the current review period of 2025. They must put health system resilience at the forefront, as the compounding crises caused by the climate crisis often manifest in acute health problems. Financing adaptation will be more cost-effective than relying on disaster relief. Some progress has been made on adaptation in Africa and around the world, including early warning systems and infrastructure to defend against extremes. But frontline nations are not compensated for impacts from a crisis they did not cause. This is not only unfair, but also drives the spiral of global destabilisation, as nations pour money into responding to disasters, but can no longer afford to pay for greater resilience or to reduce the root problem through emissions reductions. A financing facility for loss and damage must now be introduced, providing additional resources beyond those given for mitigation and adaptation. This must go beyond the failures of COP26 where the suggestion of such a facility was downgraded to “a dialogue”.18 The climate crisis is a product of global inaction, and comes at great cost not only to disproportionately impacted African countries, but to the whole world. Africa is united with other frontline regions in urging wealthy nations to finally step up, if for no other reason than that the crises in Africa will sooner rather than later spread and engulf all corners of the globe, by which time it may be too late to effectively respond. If so far they have failed to be persuaded by moral arguments, then hopefully their self-interest will now prevail. This Comment is being published simultaneously in multiple journals. For the full list of journals see: https://www.bmj.com/content/full-list-authors-and-signatories-climate-emergency-editorial-october-2022 In the interest of transparency the authors wish to declare the following roles and relationships: James Kigera is the Ex-Officio, President and Secretary of the Kenya Orthopedic Association; Paul Yonga been paid to speak or participate at events by Novartis, bioMerieux and Pfizer; Chris Zielinski is a paid consultant for the UK Health Alliance on Climate Change; Joy Muhia is an unpaid board member of the International Working Group for Health systems strengthening; David Ofori-Adjei has a relationship with GLICO Healthcare Ltd. The authors declare no further conflicts of interest beyond those inherent in the editorial roles listed above.

The great enemy of communication, we find, is the illusion of it. William Hollingsworth Whyte, 19501 On September 6, 2022, a combined investigation by research integrity experts, data and analytics experts, publishing and operational teams, and legal counsels from Hindawi and its parent company Wiley, led to the initial recommendation to retract 511 articles that were compromised based on reviewer activity alone.2 That same month, the physics publisher Institute of Physics (IOP) announced the retraction of 494 papers after investigation indicated they “may have been created, manipulated, and/or sold by a commercial entity” (or paper mill).3 This October, the Elsevier journal Thinking Skills and Creativity retracted 47 papers that appear to have been generated by a paper mill because they were each accepted on the “positive advice of one illegitimate reviewer report.”4 Paper mills and phony peer reviews5 undermine the soundness of science, because it is based on illusion rather than truth. Truth (veritas) is only verifiable if it is transparent. The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), the Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association (OASPA), and the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) have been collaborating to identify principles of transparency and best practice for scholarly publications.6 The fourth version of this work in progress was published on September 15, 2022 and is available from: https://publicationethics.org/files/principles-transparency-best-practice-scholarly-publishing.pdf The Philippine Journal of Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery upholds these principles of transparency and continues to strive to implement these best practices. In a related development, the International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers (STM) has proposed a standard taxonomy for peer review,7 recognizing a need to identify and standardize definitions and terminology in peer review practices to help align nomenclature as more publishers use open peer review models. This peer review taxonomy will help make the peer review process for articles and journals more transparent and will enable the community to better assess and compare peer review practices between different journals. According to STM, peer review should be described using four components:7 identity transparency: all identities visible: reviewers, authors, decision-making editor [editor] all visible to each other single anonymized: reviewer identity is not visible to the author, author and editor identities are visible to everyone (also known as single masked, formerly single blinded, review) double anonymized: reviewer identity is not visible to the author, author identity is not visible to the reviewer, editor identity is known to both (also known as double masked, formerly double blinded, review) triple anonymized: reviewer identity is not visible to the author or editor, author identity is not visible to the reviewer or editor, editor identity is not visible to reviewer or author (also known as triple masked, formerly triple blinded, review) who the reviewer interacts with: the editor only (traditional review), direct interaction with the other reviewers (with or without their identities visible), and/or directly with the authors (with or without identities visible) what information about the review process is published: options include no information, review summaries, review reports, review reports if the reviewer opts to have review published, review reports if the author opts to have review published, the submitted manuscript (can be posted as a preprint), the submitted manuscript if the author opts in, the editor’s correspondence with the author, the authors’ response (rebuttal) letter, reviewer identities, reviewer identities if the review opts in, editor identities 4. whether post-publication commenting takes place: online comments may be either open (commenters may be anonymous or required to sign comments; could also include whether comments are moderated) or invited only; this item does not include letters to the editor. This item is not mentioned if no commenting is allowed. Using STM terminology, the Philippine Journal of Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery may be described as follows: Identity transparency: Double anonymized Reviewer interacts with: Editor Review information published: None We are updating our Instructions to Authors and About the Journal to reflect these developments. On another front, the Philippine Journal of Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery has agreed to co-publish an editorial calling on wealthy countries to do more to support Africa and other vulnerable nations in mitigating the impact of climate change on health.8 The guest editorial in this issue is authored by the editors of 16 African health journals, and is co-published by 259 international journals, including The Lancet, British Medical Journal, New England Journal of Medicine, National Medical Journal of India, and Medical Journal of Australia and the Philippine Journal of Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery (see http://press.psprings.co.uk/bmj/october/Journals.pdf). Never have so many journals come together to make the same call, reflecting the severity of the climate change emergency now facing the world. The authors say Africa has suffered disproportionately although it has done little to cause the crisis and urges wealthy nations to step up support for Africa and vulnerable countries in addressing past, present and future impacts of climate change.8 They explain that the climate crisis has had an impact on the environmental and social determinants of health across Africa, leading to devastating health effects. In West and Central Africa, for example, severe flooding resulted in mortality and forced migration from loss of shelter, cultivated land, and livestock, while extreme weather damages water and food supply, increasing food insecurity and malnutrition, which causes 1.7 million deaths annually in Africa.8 Changes in vector ecology brought about by floods and damage to environmental hygiene has also led to increases in malaria, dengue fever, Ebola virus, and other infectious diseases across sub-Saharan Africa.8 In all, it is estimated that the climate crisis has destroyed a fifth of the gross domestic product (GDP) of the countries most vulnerable to climate shocks.8 The damage to Africa should be of supreme concern to all nations, they write, because in an interconnected world, leaving countries to the mercy of environmental shocks creates instability that has severe consequences for all nations.8 We call on participants of the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27) to take concrete steps towards achieving our collective climate goals by turning their commitments under the Paris Agreement into action, without falling short as they did in COP26 Glasgow.9 Without compromise; in truth, transparently.

NEW POLITICAL GEOGRAPHIES Welcome to another issue of Territory, Politics, Governance that illustrates the expanding breadth and depth of an inter-disciplinary engagement with political geography. The papers represented here come from six disciplines – Geography, Sociology, Political Science, Anthropology, Economics, Area Studies – and have been written by interesting authors drawn from across the northern hemisphere – these scholars being based in the UK, USA, Canada, Germany, Finland and Greece. Their topics and methodologies range from North American water governance to European Union (EU) diplomacy in Kenya, from the political science of intergovernmental relations to neo-Marxist situations of the state as a social relation, capturing how exciting and dynamic the field of territory, politics and governance has become. In doing so, they illustrate the importance of this journal in providing the collective platform for bringing together these bodies of critical thinking. It is a pleasure to position these papers, individually and collectively, in their broader intellectual environment of ‘new political geography’ (JONES et al., 2004, 2015a ,p . 2–4). There have, of course, been a number of different approaches to defining the shifting field of political geography. To some scholars, political geography has been about the study of political bounded territorial units, demarcated borders and administrative sub-divisions (ALEXANDER, 1963). For others, political geography is the study of political processes, differing from political science only in the emphasis given to geographical influences and outcomes and in the application of spatial analysis techniques (BURNETT and TAYLOR, 1981). A third approach holds that political geography should be defined in terms of its key concepts, which the proponents of this approach generally identify as territory and the state (COX, 2002, 2013). This approach shares with the earlier two approaches a desire to identify the ‘essence’ of political geography such that a definitive classification can be made of what is and what is not ‘political geography’. Yet, the doing of political geography, i.e. how it is actually researched, is much messier than these definitions suggest (witness the variety of papers published in Territory, Politics, Governance to date – compare, ELDEN, 2013 ;J ESSOP, 2016 ;P ECK, 2013 ;S ASSEN 2013; STORPER, 2014). As such, scholars, who have sought to define political geography in a much more open and inclusive manner, have taken a fourth and more relational approach. Agnew, for example, defines political geography as ‘the study of how politics

The great implications of spatialisation: Grounds for closer engagement between political geography and political science?

The digital revolution has made it easier for political scientists to share and access high-quality research online. However, many articles are stored in proprietary databases that some institutions cannot afford. High-quality, peer-reviewed, top-tier journal articles that have been made open access (OA) (i.e., freely available online) theoretically should be accessed and cited more easily than articles of similar quality that are available only to paying customers. Research into the efficacy of OA publishing thus far has focused mainly on the natural sciences, and the results have been mixed. Because OA has not been as widely adopted in the social sciences, disciplines such as political science have received little attention in the OA research. In this article, we seek to determine the efficacy of OA in political science. Our primary hypothesis is that OA articles will be cited at higher rates than articles that are toll access (TA), which means available only to paying customers. We test this hypothesis by analyzing the mean citation rates of OA and TA articles from eight top-ranked political science journals. We find that OA publication results in a clear citation advantage in political science publishing.

Comments on Daniel Elazar, political geography and political science

ABSTRACTThis article aims to unravel underlying reasons for the enigmatic outburst of farmers’ fury that swept large parts of Europe in the autumn of 2019. It does so by focussing on the Netherlands where the upheaval was particularly striking. Farmers’ resentment against ‘agribashing’ was a common theme in the many protests. This refers to, and simultaneously delegitimizes, all critiques of the current organization of farming and the unequal international patterns in which it is embedded. The article argues that the currently emerging farmers’ movement basically represents a regressive populism. It ignores the many-sided crisis of agriculture (related to ever increasing use of nitrogen, pesticides and energy that contribute to the climate crisis and loss of biodiversity) and the politico-economic processes and unequal power relations underlying this. Although this movement creates many smoke screens, it is essentially fighting for the reproduction of the same order that makes a substantial contribution to these multiple crises. As international comparison shows, this new form of right-wing, rural populism reflects the degree to which entrepreneurial agriculture has internalized the logic of capital: it needs ongoing expansion, both for material and symbolic reasons. Peasant agriculture could provide a much needed counter-image to this. In practice, though, it is highly segmented and dispersed and is in urgent need of a new unifying device.

Book Review: Children, Citizenship and Environment: #Schoolstrike Edition 154 Children, Citizenship and Environment: #Schoolstrike Edition Bronwyn Hayward (2020) London: Routledge, 259 pages $160 (Hardcover), $39.95 (paperback); ISBN: 978-0367429621 $39.95 (ebook); http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9781003000396 Our planet is now in a new age, the Anthropocene epoch. This threshold has become emblematic for citizens, academics, and politicians to focus not only upon our existing ecological reality but our social realities as well. Our collective next steps to deal with this reality have at times forgotten the voices of children and youth. Not any longer, as argued in Bronwyn Hayward’s book Children, Citizenship and Environment: #Schoolstrike Edition. Children and youth activism for the environment has been reignited by the global School Strike for Climate (SS4C) initiative, asking schools to participate in demonstrations to demand action from political leaders to mitigate climate change and decarbonize our energy industry. This was championed by Swedish youth climate activist Greta Thunberg, who staged a solo protest in August 2018 outside the Swedish parliament, holding a sign that read "Skolstrejk för klimatet" (School strike for climate; Hahn, 2021). While the current #SchoolStrike movement continues to be impactful, the work of children’s environmental activism has been the focus of Bronwyn Hayward’s scholarship well before Greta arrived on the scene. Her research focuses upon the intersection of sustainable development, youth, climate change and citizenship, as demonstrated by her contributions to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and leadership with a global initiative that spans seven cities worldwide titled, Children and Youth in Cities Lifestyle Evaluation Study (CYCLES). In this revised edition of Hayward’s ground-breaking book, Children, Citizenship and Environment, she re-examines how students, teachers, parents, and other activists learn to take effective action to confront the complex realities of climate change and other environmental challenges globally in light of the new #SchoolStrike movement. This edition draws on interviews conducted as part of the CYCLES initiative with young people in New Zealand, and includes new contributions by youth, indigenous peoples, social inclusion activists, researchers and educators, so as to provide a contemporary perspective that reminds us of the importance of youth activism and its social nexus in communities. The book is divided into eight chapters, each providing a comprehensive and succinct overview of important premises for the scholarship, along with updated commentaries gleaned from youth and other concerned citizens, professionals, and activists. Chapter 1 provides the raison d'être for the updated book as predicated on the #SchoolStrike movement. Chapter 2 builds upon the 2012 edition by having a wider discussion of the prospects of children who live in New Zealand, who are now older (ages 12-18) than the previous edition’s participants, and by listening carefully to adolescent discussions about well-being and the decarbonization of Book Review: Children, Citizenship and Environment: #Schoolstrike Edition 155 cities. Importantly, this chapter frames her research findings in the context of Anglo-American neoliberal democracies, and how youth agency has manifested itself in the New Zealand context. One of Hayward’s key research questions is to understand how children and youth can learn new forms of citizenship now to better equip themselves to thrive in the Anthropocene epoch. Chapter 3 begins to address this question by introducing three-part typologies (i.e., FEARS, SMARTS, SEEDS) or models to analyze and interpret the important discussions and interviews conducted. Chapter 4 builds upon the individual agentic model of youth activism, as demonstrated by Greta Thunberg, and highlights the power of and necessity for social and political youth agency, which can transcend an individual narrative. Chapters 5 and 6 turn to the role of formal and informal education in creating outcomes that are not only focused on environmental knowledge and dispositions, but also address actionoriented competencies relevant to local communities with the goal of better addressing the complex socio-ecological intertwining of environmental issues such as climate change. Chapter 7 reflects upon how climate change activism has reignited the discussion regarding “deliberative democracy” and how this can be used to rethink and enact practices involving youth and place, as described by the youth-led Council of the Pacific. Finally, Chapter 8 provides...

Violent Conflict and Political Development Over the Long Run: China versus Europe

To some, the question mark associated with the title of this chapter may seem unnecessary. After all, the very concept of geopolitics clearly and comprehensibly expresses the relationship between political phenomena and processes on the one hand and geographical space on the other. Still, there is a question mark here. Perhaps no other term in political science has become as discussed as "geopolitics". It wasn't always like that. At the time when the term "geopolitics" was first used by a Swedish researcher R. Kjellen in 1899, the scientific field of political geography was already taking shape, under whose founder the German geographer Friedrich Ratzel, who wrote the work Politische 1 in 1897, is considered Geography. Both terms are then used together, and above all the important personalities of political geography of the first half of the 20th century were also considered significant theorists in geopolitics. A very important theoretical geopolitical school arose in the interwar period in Germany. And it was precisely this fact that caused the very term "geopolitics" to be condemned after the Second World War and even used as a label for "non-scientific" political geography. The German geopolitical school was accused of theoretically preparing the territorial conquests of Nazi Germany.

Since the 1970s there has been a revival of interest in political theory in geography. At the heart of this renaissance is a concern about the underlying character of modern political life and of the way in which space is important to how politics is constituted and practiced. As a consequence political geography, that branch of geography whose legitimacy rests on its claim to be the most directly concerned with 'the political', has undergone a much welcomed sea change. This is not to suggest that traditional political geography was unconcerned with political theory. We only need to recall the works of such influential turn-of-the-century political theorists as Halford Mackinder (heartland theory), Friedrich Ratzel (author of lebensraum) and Peter Kropotkin (idea of decentralised, self-sufficient and ecologically balanced communities) to remind ourselves of the subject's rich, influential and diverse intellectual heritage. Compared, however, with the subject's more inward-looking recent past, in which there was little concern with or advance in political theory, today political geography recognises that pivotal to comprehending our modern world is a theoretically informed subject that acknowledges the centrality of power and of power relations to understanding our political world (Driver, 1991; Smith, 1985).

One of several important changes that have taken place in Anglo-American human geography over the last two decades is the development of a radical political geography (Clark & Dear 1984, Harvey 1985, Johnston 1986, 1989, Short 1989, Taylor 1993a, b). This ‘new’ political geography has been largely confined to analyses of the role of the state in capitalist societies (Driver 1991). Although it has become common within development studies to recognise the centrality of the postcolonial state in generating and regulating economic and social processes, human geographers have paid little attention to the characteristics of postcolonial politics (some exceptions are: Blaut 1987, Corbridge 1988, Samatar 1989, Samatar & Samatar 1987, Slater 1989a, b. Watts 1984, 1987, Watts & Bassett 1985). This calls for some brief comments on radical political geography and those fields of development geography most likely to be concerned with postcolonial politics.

This chapter introduces human geography as a vital discipline that examines the spatial dimensions of global issues, including inequality, migration, and climate crisis. Using the India‒Pakistan border as a case study, it highlights the dynamic relationship between nationalism and cooperation, demonstrating how societies construct and enforce borders. The chapter traces the discipline’s evolution from colonial roots to a pluralistic, inclusive field that integrates diverse methodologies and perspectives. Key concepts like space and power reveal how physical and social environments influence and reflect human behaviour and structures. The chapter positions human geography as a crucial lens for understanding and addressing contemporary challenges.